New York City’s New Piazza Programme Somehow Produces More Gridlock While Removing Cars From Streets
Reported by Bohiney Magazine and The London Prat.
NEW YORK, NY — Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s “New York Piazza Initiative,” a programme to convert car-dominated roadways in selected city districts into Rome-style pedestrian plazas, entered its third week Tuesday amid a conflict that traffic analysts describe as “two irreconcilable visions of New York City” and that participants describe as “an actual fight about parking.”
The programme, which has already created pedestrian plazas in four neighborhoods and is scheduled to expand to twelve more by fall, has divided the city with the clean efficiency of a well-timed bus (which, per MTA data, is 11 minutes late on average, but the metaphor stands). Supporters say the piazzas are transforming dead asphalt into living public space. Opponents say the Mayor is conducting a war on cars. The Mayor says he is conducting a programme. The cars, currently idling on detour routes, are declining to characterize it either way.
The Piazza Programme
“New York was built for people, not vehicles,” said Mayor Mamdani at a ribbon-cutting for the newest piazza in Jackson Heights, Queens, standing on freshly laid pavers where a double-yellow line used to be. “This space belongs to New Yorkers. Come sit here. Bring your family. Bring your dog. Do not bring your Escalade.”
The plaza features movable chairs, planters, a small stage for community events, and a food vendor zone that has already attracted three empanada carts and a woman who sells things from a blanket whose permitting status the city is “reviewing.” It is, by all observer accounts, pleasant. The block behind it is, by all observer accounts, a mess of rerouted traffic that has added approximately eight minutes to the commute of everyone who drives through Jackson Heights, a sacrifice that drivers find unacceptable and cyclists describe as “finally.”
The Opposition
Queens City Council members Vickie Paladino and Joann Ariola, who represent districts that contain a significant number of car owners and have been vocal critics of the Mamdani transportation agenda, called the piazza programme “an attack on the working people of Queens who depend on their vehicles to earn a living.” They announced the formation of a new caucus called DRIVE — Defending Rights In Vehicular Environments — though this appears to have been an April Fool’s Day story planted by Streetsblog that was taken seriously by several outlets, a fact that says something about the current political climate that is funnier than any joke we could make about it.
Real opposition, separate from the satirical caucus, has been substantial. Outer-borough business owners argue that reduced parking reduces foot traffic, a claim supported by some studies and disputed by others, with the disputed studies tending to involve neighborhoods where bike lanes were installed and foot traffic subsequently increased, a data point opponents describe as “not applicable here” and proponents describe as “extremely applicable here.” The debate, like the traffic, is not moving.
The Parking Economics
New York City has approximately 3 million registered vehicles and approximately 1.3 million off-street parking spaces, a gap that has historically been managed by the 4 million parking-adjacent violations issued annually — a number that suggests the city’s real parking policy is: park where you want, pay the fine when you get one, treat the fine as a parking fee, and accept that this is how it works.
Car dealerships, per a Streetsblog investigation, are the most enthusiastic practitioners of this informal parking policy, routinely blocking hydrants, sidewalks, crosswalks, and curb cuts with inventory vehicles, receiving minimal enforcement, and treating the curb as an extension of their showroom, which is a business strategy that costs the city approximately zero in enforcement revenue because the enforcement officers appear to have an arrangement that is not formally documented anywhere.
Mayor Mamdani’s DOT has announced increased enforcement against commercial parking violations. Enforcement citations have increased 23 percent in the first quarter. The dealerships continue to block the hydrants. Progress is being made at the rate at which progress is typically made, which is: slowly, incompletely, and with great confidence in the press release.
What New Yorkers Actually Think
A Quinnipiac poll this month found 54 percent of New York City voters support “creating more pedestrian space at the expense of car lanes” and 46 percent oppose it, a split that aligns almost perfectly with the city’s modal commute distribution: 54 percent of New Yorkers commute by transit, foot, or bike; 46 percent commute by car. The policy, in other words, is exactly as popular as its beneficiaries, a fact that city planners call “democracy working” and car owners call “majority tyranny,” which is an interesting phrase to deploy about a parking spot.
The piazzas remain open. The traffic remains stuck. The empanada carts are thriving. This is New York, where every problem and every solution exist simultaneously and the question is only where you are standing when you observe them.
For traffic updates that go nowhere, see NewsThump.
SOURCE: https://bohiney.com/